Passing Away
by Pankeiko
Summary: Basically, a true story. A family moment of little Sherlock Holmes, when he understood what "loss" is. Read&Review&Reblog!


"Mother?" little Sherlock asked, perplexed by something he had seen just few minutes earlier.

The day before, his father's father had passed away, and since then he noticed that Mr. Holmes had been acting strange in the last few hours.

He hadn't dine the previous evening, and he had just a few nibbles of his lunch that day; plus he skipped work, and he never did that. Not even when Mycroft fell from his bike and broke his leg.

Did this mean that he was ill, or something worrying like that?

Sherlock was only five years old, and he couldn't understand such a behavior. That's why he went to his mother, to seek advice, not wanting to make a fool out of himself with his older brother.

His mother had asked him to do a drawing, or perhaps write something to his grandfather, but he didn't. He didn't see the point in it, he was dead , wasn't he?

"What is it, Sherlock?" his mother asked quietly, caressing his messy black curls.

He wanted to ask something about a thing he noticed earlier that day, when his father left the house to go to an unknown place.

Before leaving he said something to his mother, something he didn't quite grasp as he was too shocked by what stood in front of his eyes: his father was crying . Or, at least, his eyes where wet and his face contorted in what looked like pain.

That's what he wanted to know.

"Mother, why was father crying earlier?" he whispered, not wanting to disturb the strange atmosphere that seemed to have been dropped on his house since the previous day.

His mother jerked away from him quite harshly, not really meaning it, as she didn't mean the bitter tone in her voice.

"He was crying because you didn't write anything for your grandfather." she said, turning then and leaving the room.

Little Sherlock just sat there, quiet and thoughtful for a moment, his gaze fixed on his own hands placed in his lap.

Was such a thing so important?

That same evening, the Holmes family went to Grandfather's house. Sherlock hold his mother's hand, trying to look into the coffin placed in the middle of the living room he so often spend evenings in, talking with the old man now lying cold in that wooden box.

It felt strange, to think he wouldn't have tea with him anymore. He was a rude man, but he was gentle at the same time, and cared for him and Mycroft.

As their parents stood silently in the room, his brother approached the coffin and slipped what looked like a sealed letter into it, next to their grandfather's body. Sherlock saw that and knotted his eyebrows, perplexed. That's what he was supposed to do?

"Say goodbye, Sherlock." his mother whispered to him, pushing him ever so lightly toward the center of the room.

When he was close enough, Sherlock stood on his tiptoes and looked inside the coffin.

How did they know he wasn't sleeping? Just because he was a bit pale...

Sherlock gulped as he took in the sight of the dead body, the first of a long sequence. Then, he said nothing as he slipped a little piece of paper out of his pocket and put it on his grandfather's chest, his hand brushing against the man's one; he jerked away, terrified.

How could he be so cold?

Quickly he got away from there and returned to her mother, hugging her legs in a way he never used to, as if he was scared.

And he was.

Now he understood, as hot tears streamed down his face, why his father had been crying earlier, and was glad to have his mother's hand stroking his hair gently.

It was only years later that a teenage Sherlock found that very same note lying on a drawer he never opened. His hands trembled in confusion for the briefest moment as he picked it up, before his mind understood that probably his mother took that and Mycroft's letter out of grandfather's coffin before it was buried.

He smiled fondly at the sad memory, taking in the sight of his five-years-old handwriting and the grammatically incorrect sentence.

"grandfather if you found yourself well i am happy for you and between deads"... Then a scribble, an erased mistake before continuing: "anyways i love you all the same"

He now wondered what his brother had wrote in his elegant looking letter.

The note is an actual one I found in my drawer some years ago. Basically, true story.


End file.
